Varieties of Saint Magic

From: tavener_at_swbell.net
Date: Fri, 07 May 1999 19:30:32 -0500


David Cake:
>>- - which doesn't mean its the same as theist magic, in most cases its
>>merely similar, and similar to hero worship rather than worship of deities
>>generally.

Peter Metcalfe, in reply:
>Hero worship is not unique to theists. Therefore I fail the
>point of making anything remotely associated with hero worship
>theist in origin.

Cake, again
>> I think that the only meaningful way to speak of gaining wizardly
>>benefits from saint worship is if a saint is the original creator of a
>>particular spell

Metcalfe:
>I do not believe the Saints are restricted to this. They should
>be capable of miracolous intervention and not just be deified
>spell-makers.

This topic touches (I believe) upon the question, that of "What magical practices involving saints are practiced by the Western (Malkioni) cultures of Glorantha".

One approach to answering that question would be to seek real-world parallels in Christian saint ideas/practices. To my mind, this would include the following:

Intercession. This is the direct intervention of the saint, after death, in the affairs of the mundane world. This need not involve the saint's actual appearance, but it should probably be apparent to all witnesses of the act which saint was involved, either because of the nature of the aid, or the context of the aid. (The cripple walks! It must be due to the intercession of Saint Bob, patron saint of indigents!)

Intercession could be gained by invoking the aid of the saint (in HW this could be an ability, very easily) by one who has chosen the saint as a patron. In PDPass, I would say that this would require several personality traits at various minimum levels. Though I do expect that 'spontaneous intercession for the righteous' should occur, there is probably no need for rules for this. If you design the character to be one of the righteous, your GM would decide whether you ever get intercession.

Invocation. Though it may seem munchkin to some, I think it would be neat, if by directly invoking some saint, you got a minor magical effect out of it.

Exapmple: Sir Harry, upon smiting the heathen Krjalki cries out, "By St. Maximus!" His blow lands with a crashing thud on the tentacled monstrosity's head

This is probably closest to the saint system worked out for RQ in TotRM. In HW, this might not be more than adding a +1 to an appropriate ability.

Vows. The act of swearing by a saint to do such-and-such a thing should have a magical effect. To my mind, there are two different sorts of vows. The first is the vow of vengeance or completion of a great quest or task. The benefits gained from this might be very intangible or not, based on who the vow is sworn by and the individual swearing it. Crusade magics might be considered a variant of this type of Vow magic.

The other sort of Vow could best be described as voluntary bans on personal behavior. These might include Vows to give aid to the needy, or to abstain from alcohol or sex, for example. Unless I am wrong, these are the sort of vows possible in Sandy's Sorcery System (is that S'sSS or S'sRQSS, or worse, St. abv. help us, S'sRQ3.1SS).

This sort of Vow should probably provide some sort of minor continuous magical benefit, like Sandy's system, or like religious status in PD.

This neatly segues into the next sort of interaction, that of a 'ahem' mystic interaction with a saint. By this, I specifically mean the study and meditation on the life of a saint, and the magical and social changes this creates in the soul of the mystic.

In PD, this might mean the improvement of Personality Traits, perhaps beyond twenty.

This is very neatly connected to the last of my surmises, Heroquesting on the path of the saint. This involves the use of the saint's life as a Heroquest path, and the Hero Powers and insights that might be gained from following such a path. I imagine this to be similar to theist Heroquest, patterned and modeled as a vision that the hero receives from the saint.

There certainly might be others, or perhaps some of those I have mentioned should be merged together. Comments?

DWRT Doyle Wayne Ramos-Tavener

It is not reasonable to suppose that Aristotle knew the number of the Elect.

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